Lord Dashwood Missed Out(4)

He would get that scribbling spinster here if he had to cart her from Canterbury himself.

And someway, somehow, Griff would procure some goddamned sherry.

All was silent.

Sickeningly, torturously silent.

Nora’s shaken mind groped for understanding. The carriage had come to rest. Not quite on its side, but at a steep slant. The two of them had landed in a tangled heap of limbs on the carriage floor.

Dash.

She wanted to speak to him, call out—­but panic had seized her tongue. Her voice refused to work.

“Nora?”

Relief flooded her. She felt ashamed of all those stupid prayers she’d sent heavenward earlier that afternoon. This was the only answer that mattered.

He roused and twisted, as if trying to get a glimpse of her face. His fingers brushed a lock of loosened hair from her brow, and an idiotic frisson of pleasure chased through her.

He’d never touched her so tenderly. No man had.

“Nora,” he echoed, his voice hoarse. “For God’s sake, answer. Tell me you’re well.”

She managed a nod. Her whole body trembled. No doubt he was anxious to have her weight off him, but no part of her wanted to move. Lord, this was so embarrassing.

“S–sorry,” she forced out. “I–I . . .”

“Hush.” His strong arms gathered around her, easing her trembling. “All is well. The coach took a skid off the road, that’s all. You’re unharmed.”

“And you? Dash, you’re not—­”

He shushed her. “I’m unharmed, as well. It’s over.”

She closed her eyes. His heartbeat pounded against her cheek, strong and steady. His arms held her tight.

All too soon, those powerful arms flexed, lifting her onto the cushioned carriage seat. He kicked the carriage door open and made his way through.

“I’ll just look in on the driver,” he told her.

She nodded again.

The door fell closed with a bang.

Alone, Nora collapsed onto the seat cushion and curled into a ball. No matter how tightly she held her knees, she couldn’t seem to stop shaking. She closed her eyes and tried to recall the feeling of safety.

And her mind ran straight back to his embrace.

How powerful and unyielding his arms had felt. And well she supposed they would be, after four years of sea voyages. Dash would not be the sort of explorer to remain in his cabin, poring over charts. No, he would be hauling on rigging and battening hatches with the crew—­honing his arms to nothing but sculpted muscle and cords of sinew, covered by taut, bronzed skin.

She really shouldn’t be thinking of him thus. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t entertain foolish dreams like this, ever again. But this wasn’t quite a dream, was it? It was a memory.

He treated you so poorly, she reminded herself sternly. He humiliated you before a crowd of onlookers. He left you and never looked back.

But then he’d held her, right in this coach. She could still hear his heartbeat echoing in her ears.

The door opened.

She startled, jumped on the seat, and tried not to look as though she’d been recently thinking of muscles. Not muscles in general, and most especially not his.

Snowflakes fringed his eyelashes and dusted his dark, curling hair. “I have bad news, and worse news.”

“Oh.”

“This damnable storm. The temperature dropped so suddenly, the road is a sheet of ice. We ran into a rut. It’s a miracle none of the horses were lamed.”

Nora sat up. “I can get out. That will lighten the load. I can even help push us back on the road. I’m strong.”

He shook his head. “The splinter bar is damaged. The team can’t pull on a broken hitch. And even if that could be repaired, the coachman tells me he’s just spoken with a rider forced to turn back before Rye. A bridge is out. Cracked under the weight of the ice.”

“Oh, no. What does he plan to do?”

“Unhitch the team. Leave the coach here and head back north to the nearest inn. There’s just enough daylight left.”

“But you can’t mean to suggest we’ll walk back.”

“No. We don’t mean to walk, Nora.” He looked her in the eye. “We’ll ride.”

Ride?

Nora closed her eyes. The very suggestion of riding on horseback made her stomach turn.

“Dash, I can’t. I just can’t. Not tonight. I haven’t ridden on horseback since . . . since we lost Andrew.”

She remembered it all too clearly. The mare’s frightened whinny. The sick crunch of bone.

The breathless terror.

“You won’t even try?”

“I don’t think I’m able.” She cast a desperate look out at the swirling snow. “If this were the Kentish countryside on a warm summer’s morn, perhaps. But to ride a strange horse through a snowstorm, in rapidly failing daylight? And after such a scare.”

Surely he must understand. He’d been there, too. No matter what malice he believed her to have committed, he had to have sympathy for this.

“I’d rather stay here in the coach,” she said.

“Don’t be absurd. You don’t even have a cloak.”

“I have some woolen stockings in my trunk. With the doors shut up tight I’ll stay warm enough.”

He stared at her for a moment, eyes dark and intense as midnight. Then he muttered a curse and banged the door closed.

For the next several minutes, she remained still, listening to the noises of the coachman unhitching the team. Then all was silent.

Except for the thudding, frantic beat of her heart.

What had she been thinking, letting them leave without her? Was it too late to run after them? If they kept the horses at a walk, perhaps she could manage to keep up on foot. She had to try.

She’d just finished checking her bootlaces when the door banged open.

Again, she startled, pressing a hand to her chest. “Dash. I thought you’d gone.”

“You truly believe I’m capable of such villainy? Abandoning you alone in a snowstorm to fend for yourself?”

“Well. You did leave me without a word once before.”

He made a gruff noise. “I thought your little pamphlet wasn’t about me.”

Nora didn’t reply.

“Don’t worry, you needn’t count this as chivalry on my part,” he said. “I could say I’m acting out of long-­held esteem for your family. But mostly, I’ll be damned if I’ll leave you here to scribble the sequel: Lord Ashwood Left Me for Dead.” He thrust a big, gloved hand in her direction and made an impatient motion. “Come along.”

She regarded him, wary. “Where are we going?”

“There’s a cottage some distance off the road. Not really a cottage. I believe it’s some sort of gamekeeper’s shelter.”

“A cottage?”

“Perhaps you’d call it a hut.”

“A hut.”

“It seems to be uninhabited at the moment. Probably barren inside.”

“Well, that’s lucky,” she said, taking his hand. “One wouldn’t want for this abandoned hut to be too comfortable. We might be tempted to stay for a holiday.”

He grasped her by the wrist and yanked her to him. Their bodies collided as she stumbled into the snow.

Despite the chill, parts of Nora melted. Oh. Those muscles again.

“It’s a structure,” he said. “One with walls and a roof, and it will keep us alive until the coachman returns in the morning.” He looked down and gave her a cold, strange smile. “Assuming we don’t kill each other first.”





CHAPTER FOUR


Griff was a duke with a mission.

Immediately after leaving the library, he strode across the green to the Bull and Blossom tavern.

“I don’t suppose you’ve a cask of good sherry?” he asked the tavern keeper.

Fosbury answered in the negative, and Griff thanked him anyway.

“Halford,” a familiar voice called to him. “Come sit down and have a hand of cards.”

Griff crossed to the other side of the room, where three men sat near the hearth, nursing tankards of ale. His old friend Colin Sandhurst, Lord Payne; Colin’s cousin Lord General Victor Bramwell, the Earl of Rycliff; and Rycliff’s right-­hand man—­the hulking, taciturn Captain Samuel Thorne.

Each man held a hand of tattered playing cards, and in the middle of the table were a pile of . . .

Griff plucked one of the gray lumps from the table. “You’re playing for rocks?”

“Fossils,” Colin corrected, snatching the lump from his hand. “Minerva collected hundreds this week. She can spare a few. These round ones? They’re ammonites—­worth a half-­crown. Troglodytes are a shilling.”

“I thought they were called trilobites,” Rycliff said.

“Listen, Bram, whose lady is the geologist?” Colin retorted. “Do I try to tell you the names of herbs and such?”

Griff interrupted. “I can’t sit down to cards tonight. I’m off to see about this Miss Browning who’s speaking at the library. The roads are bad, and her coach has likely been delayed.” He glanced at the table. “Also, my purse is light on rocks.”

“You’re going out in that?” Colin tilted his head at the rain-­glazed window and made a face.

“Well, since Miss Browning is somewhere out in that . . .” Griff tilted his head in the same direction. “Yes.”